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Journal of Free Speech Law: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Gitlow," by Ronald K.L. Collins

From the "Gitlow v. New York at 100" symposium, held this year at the Arizona State University Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law.

|The Volokh Conspiracy |


The article is here; the Introduction:

This is a story about a man with incredible luck. It was made possible by some remarkable lawyers and judges, and it ended unpredictably. It is the story of Benjamin Gitlow (1891–1965), a man who loved a freedom others feared. It is also a short story about a segment of the history of the First Amendment, a history that Gitlow v. New York (1925) helped to shape. Curious then that the same man who first fought for freedom later fought to suppress it—he was intolerant of those with opposing opinions. In time, his turncoat stripes would reveal his true colors, which made his life story all the more curious. Moral: We take our free speech heroes as we find them, warts and all.

Eugene Volokh is the Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, and the Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus and Distinguished Research Professor at UCLA School of Law. Naturally, his posts here (like the opinions of the other bloggers) are his own, and not endorsed by any institution.